


pink porcelain and a prehistoric cheese stick

by theurbanspaceboi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Banter, Brotherly Affection, Brothers, Dean Winchester Takes Care of Sam Winchester, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sam Winchester Takes Care of Dean Winchester, Season/Series 01, Sickfic, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28105254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theurbanspaceboi/pseuds/theurbanspaceboi
Summary: dean winchester is a professional maker of bad decisions, and sam winchester is probably deserving of sainthood for putting up with him
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	pink porcelain and a prehistoric cheese stick

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends, 
> 
> i entered the year of our lord 2020 with enthusiasm, energy, determination, and the naivete of someone swaggering across their lawn, unaware that they're about to step on a massive nest filled to the brim with furious hornets. 
> 
> suffice to say, this year kicked everyone in the dick. repeatedly. 
> 
> i am a broken man. i started writing fanfiction.  
> ...
> 
> thanks to my first beta for unconditional and endless love, support, patience, and encouragement. i couldn't do it without you.
> 
> thanks to my second beta for grammatical wisdom, constructive criticism given gently and kindly, and always hyping my work up.
> 
> ...
> 
> have a great day, stay frosty, and thanks for reading.

"poisoned," dean mutters, clutching the pink motel toilet like it's a beloved stuffed animal. "that bitch at the diner poisoned my eggs."

the bitch in question is a giggly, girlish waitress they met at a diner with slip-n-slide greasy floors and a menu full of diabetes triggers four and a half hours ago. dean may have been too struck with her long legs and glittery eyelashes to pay much attention, but sam's pretty confident the only tampering she participated in was scribbling her number along with her name, alice or abbie or allie or something, i dotted with a heart, on the receipt for dean's benefit.

"no one poisoned you," sam says tiredly. "it was probably that cheese stick."

"tasted fine," dean says weakly. "if not poison, probably the black plague. or malaria." he leans his forehead against the toilet seat like he's too exhausted to use his neck muscles. "or rabies. or leprosy."

sam somehow finds the strength to resist rolling his eyes, which is a feat deserving of canonization as a saint. dean, on the other hand, deserves to be legally declared an idiot for thinking that a dusty cheese stick from the year of our lord 2001 that he found in the bottom of the glove box was possibly edible.

"i told you it would make you sick."

"cholera."

"it's the cheese stick, dean."

unfortunately for for everyone, but mainly for sam, his heart is too big to allow him to just leave dean to his probably deserved fate. he rinses a rough, pilled motel washcloth in cool water and sticks it to the back of dean's neck, who grumbles something moody and resentful about sam mothering him. 

usually doggedly silent, stubborn, and insistent that he’s perfectly damn fine when ill, dean unlocks a totally unnecessary level of drama and bitching at the first hint of rebellion from his usually-iron stomach.

“you’re damn dramatic,” sam informs him.

dean may be a complete pain in the ass, but sam takes pride in taking good care of him on the rare occasions where he's ill enough to submit to being cared for or too weak to protest. it's satisfying, like finishing writing a long paper, or scrubbing a dirty dish sparkling clean. 

"if i die, don't burn my bones. i want to haunt you," dean grumbles. 

"if you die now, do you think your ghost will barf rotten cheese stick for the rest of time?" 

"cheese stick? i'm puking everything i've ever eaten. i think i saw some meatloaf i ate when i was 12."

sam barks a laugh; dean manages to glare at him for a moment before returning to worshiping the pink porcelain. he's lost the contents of his stomach, but not his sense of humor, apparently.

sam decides that the remainder of their rations, which consist of half a bag of spicy chips and one packet of trail mix, are not appropriate for a sick person to eat. 

"i'm going for a quick supply run," he announces. "you'll be okay?"

"unlikely," dean huffs.

he'll be fine. sam's grocery list borders on suspicious:

\- beef jerky  
\- lighter fluid  
\- three pairs of socks  
\- cheetos  
\- pepsi  
\- rock salt  
\- an axe  
\- trail mix  
\- saltines  
\- gatorade

he may as well throw in a shovel and a blunt object or two to complete the murder toolkit. 

the clerk, clad in attire sam had previously seen only in documentaries about the amish, frowns over her glasses at him. he’s not sure whether it’s his unusual selection of items, or the fading bruise on his jaw from a scuffle last week, or his increasingly shaggy hair that draws her judgement, but she thankfully asks no questions. he manages to feel guilty anyway and privately resolves to avoid shopping at odd, family-owned corner markets in the future.

it begins snowing during sam’s walk back to the motel, and he tugs his jacket tight around him. 

dean is still sprawled on the floor of the bathroom when sam returns; his eyes are dark and hollow, his skin papery, and his t-shirt is sweat-soaked despite the cold outside. sam wrangles him into bed without regard for his weak attempts at resistance. 

“don’t manhandle me, you fucker,” dean grumbles hazily from beneath the comforter. "i'll barf all over.”

"drink your gatorade," sam orders.

dean starts snoring not half an hour later to "i love lucy" reruns he didn't even have the strength to protest. sam spends an hour trying to determine if eating a fossilized cheese stick will have any long-lasting effects; unfortunately there's not a readily available answer online, probably because most people aren't fool enough to find out. 

he finally closes his laptop, deciding that dean's survived worse. he’ll be sorted out by morning, with any luck.

fortune is on their side, apparently. when sam returns from an early-morning coffee run, stomping his snow-covered boots inside the door, he finds "top gun" blaring on the tv, half the cheetos already eaten, and dean belting ac/dc's "highway to hell" in the shower.

"last night, you were convinced you were dying," sam scolds when dean emerges, wet hair sticking to his forehead, "and today you've already eaten a shitton of cheetos?"

he grins. “and i’m still hungry, dude. burgers?”

dean's pride, undoubtedly wounded by hours of puking into a pink toilet of all things, seems recovered. sam's caretaking has come to an end. 

apparently both completely restored to health and genuinely ravenous, dean manages to down the rest of the cheetos, another bottle of gatorade, and two cheeseburgers with extra onions in their first 20 minutes in the car, driving with his knees to facilitate stuffing his face. sam frowns disapprovingly at both his dietary choices and questionable driving methods, but resists commentary because he has some leftover sympathy from dean’s brush with ejecting his internal organs out his mouth.

when sam’s joints start to ache an hour down the road, he assumes it’s just the cold reminding him of pounding pavement and falling hard on his feet and throwing hands with entities with skin like steel, and a thousand other times he’s not treated his body as well as he probably should. 

when exhaustion, thick and heavy and disorienting, settles in his chest, he assumes he’s just been pushing too hard with little rest, and lays his head against the window only to find he can’t seem to fall asleep.

when he’s suddenly cold, freezing cold, even as his t-shirt sticks sweaty to his back, he insists it’s the snow whirling outside the impala and cranks up the heat.

it isn't until they're four hours down the road and sam starts puking in a truck stop bathroom that he realizes dean’s prehistoric cheese stick snack was never the problem. it was a stomach flu all along, and he’s got it now.

dean doesn't even laugh, which is unfortunately just as great a feat as sam's long-suffering eye roll resistance, and if they're both worthy of sainthood, the bar for canonization must truly be on the floor.

sam is hazy on the details, but he knows the motel room they check into smells of cigarette smoke and has a tiny yellowed toilet in a bathroom with green striped wallpaper.

"probably a bad cheese stick, sammy," dean snarks, but there’s no malice. 

he smooths sam’s hair off his sweaty forehead while he’s sick and presses a cold cloth to the back of his neck and pours gatorade down his throat.

“i’m probably dying,” sam groans, feeling dizzy, his mouth sour.

“you’re going to have to work it out, man,” dean says, not unkindly. “it sucks,” he settles on the edge of the tub, “but you’ll be okay in a while.”

he’s good company, sam thinks.

dean talks for hours and hours about the plots of bad movies, and motorcycles, and how he’d like to learn how to sail, and about seeing snake he claims was two-headed, though sam doesn’t believe it for a moment. he fills the silence and keeps sam comfortable even as he’s alternating between slumping, exhausted, against the wall and being violently ill.

eventually it's sam's turn to be manhandled into bed, buried under a mound of blankets. 

he falls asleep to "star trek: the next generation" reruns he doesn’t even have the strength to protest.


End file.
